Uganda is counting on all of us

COMMENT | Olivia Nalubwama | In the run-up to the 2021 Uganda presidential elections, as tensions ratcheted up, a battle-hardened journalist friend asked a French diplomat his thoughts on the growing tensions.

The French diplomat calmly responded: “I hold a French passport. I will leave for the airport and be out of here in no time. But, I do not know about you.” There was nothing new in the diplomat’s smooth delivery – just the bitter truth clinically delivered.

A moment of silence for Ugandans whose faith has them waiting on the highly esteemed international community to swoop down, one day, in attack helicopters and fix our Uganda. Ba dia, the work that is Uganda is foras. The work is in our hands, embedded within the lines defining our palms.

During the December 30 Makerere University Convocation election, which served us scenes of premium violence usually reserved for juicier national positions, the arrest of human rights lawyer and researcher Godwin Toko, stood out. In a video that trended on Twitter, Toko is shown agitated by the police officers’ manhandling of people.

Toko, a good and passionate citizen, just the kind of citizen Uganda craves, raises his voice in support of those whose rights are being downtrodden. Toko dares to question the unfolding madness before him. He loudly demands answers as more police officers approach him.

They approach him as though they want to hear him out. In their approach, they encircle him in the manner of the Shaka Zulu’s bull horn formation. This is war! Within seconds, Toko has succumbed to the brutality he just questioned. Several people look on as the police officers drag Toko away. None of the onlookers intervenes.

Why would they? Toko intervened; the police made short work of him and his loud civilian remonstrations. Bravado and being a firebrand lawyer does not faze the police who summarily bundle Toko into their custody. While Toko was in state custody, the hashtag #FreeGodwinToko trended, and many tweeted condemning the actions of the police. To Toko’s good fortune, the police released him the next day.

My journalist friend pointed out that Toko’s release was due to the voices on the outside agitating for his release. Responding to my consternation about the onlookers that simply watched as the police dragged Toko away, my friend argued that many Ugandans would delicately sidestep getting involved in our shambolic politics. He posited that the onlookers probably asked themselves, “Who will fight for me when I am in custody?”

Twenty one-year-old Lorna Naula, a university student, had a relative in custody for whom she sought to fight. Naula contacted a former schoolmate for help. Her former schoolmate – the daughter of the army’s Chief of Defence Forces (CDF). Naula hoped the CDF might support her efforts to secure bail for her relative.

For her efforts, Naula came under investigation on suspicion of harbouring nefarious plans against the CDF’s daughter, reported the Daily Monitor. That’s how Naula spent two December nights in custody at the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence.

It sounds like an alternate universe, another Uganda where the state is an apex predator preying on its quisling citizens for daring to hold dissenting views. Yet this is our Uganda with all its contradictions. For some of our fellow citizens, the state is a benevolent Jajja showering them with privileges.

For those who dare to dissent, the state is a diabolical villain casting long dark shadows over their lives. There are also those for whom the state is accepted as absent. Anytime the fickle state makes it rain services on them, they kneel down and fervently thank the state for favouring/ remembering them.

Alongside those contradictions, our Uganda is also a land of vast opportunity. The failure of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime to rein in impunity is our opportunity to learn and resolve to do better. For all the missed opportunities for national reconciliation and unity, let the hubris of the ruling party remind us of our fallible mortality.

Let us look upon the NRM with renewed eyes and cautiously behold the deluded vanity of our human condition. Therafa, the bravado of Toko in the face of oppression, without the assurance that others would stand up for him, with the knowledge that his actions would likely invite police brutality, is worthy of our attention. Toko’s bravado should be bottled that we onlookers may imbibe it drunkenly.

In his book, The Politics of Common Sense, acclaimed lawyer David F.K. Mpanga with his knack for razor-sharp clarity of thought, writes, “…the state of our nation is a fairly accurate reflection of what each one of us has done or permitted to be done. The greater part of what is going on in Uganda is being done by Ugandans to Ugandans or is being permitted by Ugandans to be done unto Ugandans.”

Which Ugandan will you be?

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Olivia Nalubwama is a “tayaad Muzukulu, tired of mediocrity and impunity” smugmountain@gmail.com

THIS ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE OBSERVER